Tupac's mentor: Shock G will perform at the Globe Theatre in Kalamazoo on Saturday.

KALAMAZOO — Shock G, of Digital Underground fame, is the definition of old school, and not just in terms of rapping either.

Sure Shock G, whose real name is Gregory Jacobs, rode the first wave of late ’70s hip-hop to minor stardom as a member of
the Master Blasters.

He mentored Tupac Shakur for several years
before the late rapper rose to critical acclaim and societal infamy.
And no doubt
he created one of the game’s most well-known characters, the
Groucho Marx/Rodney Dangerfield/Slick Rick mash-up known as Humpty
Hump.

But rapping is only one lesson on the curriculum when Shock G takes you to class.

But make sure to listen close because when Shock talks, and he talks fast, you’re bound to learn a thing or two.

“I was always really interested in music
and the history of it. I wanted to learn the blues because the blues
spawned rock
’n’ roll and funk and R&B and disco spawned hip-hop. I wanted
to know the roots,” Shock G said during a phone interview from
his Oakland, Calif., home.

His early infatuation with music spilled over into every aspect of his life, even love.

“From 1981 to about 1984, I wouldn’t even
date a girl if she didn’t have a piano. I was always the last one at the
party in
the back room playing the piano, everybody be singing, then they’d
leave and I’m the last one there, still playing,” he said.

And he’d be the last one standing by a friend when times got hard. For Shock G, you can’t talk about music without talking
about friends. You can’t talk about friends without talking about family. And you can’t talk about family without talking
about life.

Shock remembered a moment in 1993 during the making of Tupac Shakur’s video for the song, “I Get Around.” Shakur, who two
years earlier had been brutally beaten by members of the Oakland Police Department, was just coming off a potential murder
rap in the death of a young boy following a festival performance in Marin, Calif. The charge was eventually dropped.

“I said, ‘Pac word on the street in
Oakland is that the police are after you. And word on the street in L.A.
is two more hits
are out on you.’ You know gang hits that’s paid already. I took
out my key to my condo, everybody knows I love my condo and
wouldn’t give it away to anybody but I was like, ‘Here, this is a
key to my condo. I’m going on tour tomorrow, get off the
street, watch some TV. Kick back. Chill there. There’s plenty of
food, there’s a grocery store in the building down stairs,
a movie theater across the street. Just hide out there for a
while. Call your girl, you two take my house for a couple months,
just relax.’ And he was looking at me impatiently like, ‘You
finished?’ And he said, ‘You just don’t get it do you?’ And he
leaned in and looked me in the eye and he said ‘I don’t give a
f---!’ and walked away,” Shock G said.

For much of Shock’s life between the years
of ’91 and ’96, he was stuck between the rock of trying to continue a
hip-hop career
that began in the late ’70s, and the hard place of watching the
music change from the funk and R&B-based party records of
his youth, to the hard-core gangster-influenced music emanating
from both coasts.

And even worse he was watching one of his best friends lead a revolution that he was no longer a part of.

“I grew up in the ’70s and in the ’70s
there was a lot of love in the music so you know my mindset, a lot of us
at that age,
a lot of the first hip-hoppers we grew up with P-Funk and Earth,
Wind and Fire, you know all the slogans were ‘One Nation
Under A Groove,’ ‘Every Man Has A Place In His Heart.’ ... Even
the disco records, everything was so positive,” Shock G said.

But here he was in the middle ’90s living in a world dominated by thug life.

“I don’t recognize my friend Tupac when I
listen to ‘Makaveli’ (the stage name taken by Shakur for his final
studio album,
1996’s “The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory”), I enjoy those
records but I don’t really recognize my friend in there; it’s
a character. It’s his Humpty. Makaveli was only a character,
that’s what Shock G wants the world to remember.

“I remind them that, that’s not who Tupac was. Just like Bruce Wayne ain’t Batman, Bruce Wayne is Bruce Wayne, Batman is Batman.
I’m Shock G, I’m not Humpty and Tupac Shakur was an angel, Makaveli was a thug,” Shock G said.

He’ll have a chance to prove that thug life isn’t the only life on Saturday night at the Globe Theatre below Shakespeare’s
when he takes the stage along with Digital Underground running mates DJ Fuze and Pee Wee.

The Shock G Trio aims to remind Kalamazoo
there once was a time when hip-hop was fun, when an artist’s two goals
were to either
make you dance or to make you think. And if you’re in the audience
when Shock G’s on stage, then be ready for a bus ride all
the way back to the old school.

“We’re going to do all the Digital songs, and then some. We’re going to do all the stuff that we produced with Tupac, we’re
going to chop it up and demonstrate how to use turntables and samplers and stuff,” Shock said.